With rapid development of scientific and information industries and in views of convenience, wireless communication technologies are gradually used in more and more electronic devices of our daily lives. During the operation of a wireless electronic device, the wire linkage is exempted and thus the troublesome process of managing the connecting wire is avoided. In addition, the wireless electronic device could be operated at any place that is within the wireless network coverage area. The most popular wireless electronic devices are wireless computer peripheral devices such as wireless mice, wireless keyboards, wireless presentation remote controllers or wireless microphones.
In the practical applications of the wireless computer peripheral devices, the automatic frequency hopping methods are very important. Due to many factors, if the signal emitting terminal and the signal receiving terminal of a wireless computer peripheral device fail to perform wireless communication in the current communication frequency band, the wireless communication between the signal emitting terminal and the signal receiving terminal should be performed in another communication frequency band. The process of switching the current communication frequency band to another communication frequency band is also referred as a frequency hopping procedure. An inferior frequency hopping procedure causes a slow frequency hopping rate of the wireless computer peripheral device. As such, a communication failure problem between the signal emitting terminal and the signal receiving terminal occurs. Under this circumstance, the user fails to normally input data. On the other hand, if the frequency hopping procedure between the signal emitting terminal and the signal receiving terminal is frequently done, the residual battery capacity of the wireless computer peripheral device will be consumed quickly. Since a lot of frequency hopping signals occupy much space, the wireless communication interference with other wireless devices will be possibly created.
Generally, the frequency hopping procedure is performed when the communication between the signal emitting terminal and the signal receiving terminal is failed. However, there are some reasons of communication failure. For some reasons of communication failure, the communication quality is improved by the frequency hopping procedure. For some other reasons of communication failure, the communication quality fails to be improved by the frequency hopping procedure.
FIG. 1A is a schematic diagram illustrating the generation of wireless communication interference according to a conventional wireless transmission technology. As shown in FIG. 1A, the signal receiving terminal 120 is located within the effective communication range of the signal emitting terminal 110. In a case that one or more wireless electronic devices 130 are located in the vicinity of the signal emitting terminal 110 and the signal receiving terminal 120, the current frequency band for communicating the signal emitting terminal 110 with the signal receiving terminal 120 will be switched to another frequency band in order to improve the communication quality.
FIG. 1B is a schematic diagram illustrating the generation of wireless communication interference according to another conventional wireless transmission technology. As shown in FIG. 1B, the signal receiving terminal 120 is located beyond the effective communication range of the signal emitting terminal 110, or the residual battery capacity of the signal emitting terminal 110 is insufficient to provide enough power to emit wireless signals. Even if the current frequency band for communicating the signal emitting terminal 110 with the signal receiving terminal 120 is switched to another frequency band, the wireless signals fail to be transmitted from the signal emitting terminal 110 to the signal receiving terminal 120. Under this circumstance, the frequency hopping procedure fails to enhance the communication quality and the power consumption of the battery is increased. Moreover, if the frequency hopping procedure between the signal emitting terminal 110 and the signal receiving terminal 120 is frequently done, the communication of other wireless electronic devices within the effective communication range of the signal emitting terminal 110 will be interfered.
Therefore, there is a need of providing an improved automatic frequency hopping method for analyzing the reasons of communication failure and adaptively activating the frequency hopping operation is performed according to the reasons of communication failure, thereby enhancing the communication quality, reducing power consumption and avoiding the wireless communication interference with other wireless devices.